alternatives
 

Did you consider the Panasonic HMC150 or Sony Z7 as alternatives? Have you had any issues with manual control of iris or shutter? Is the zoom smooth? Is low-light shooting quiet at 9, 18 db? Is the lens wide enough? Is the codec comparable with AVC?

Hi John,

yes I consider a few other camera mostly Sony and Canon but not panasonic.
Actually I was going to get the EX1 but when the HM100 came out I decided to go with JVC.
For me manual control is fine takes a while to get use to the small ring in the back of the camera. Some people are not crazy about the zoom for me it's fine. I always shoot at 0db
to get the best image possible I haven't really messed with gain much so I can't say. I've never used AVC codec so I can't compare sorry. Hope this helps. Putting aside all the faults
that some have mention on this forum this camera can produce some incredible images.

I rented a HMC150. Loved the camera, controls etc. Picture is good, not razor sharp, but I like 720p and its 720p is very good. It is much larger than the HM100 though.

I bought the HM100 due to the size. I just can not take the HMC150 around with me like I can the HM100. The HM100 720p is a little sharper in my opinion. The 1080i on HM100 is good, but I found if you lower the sharpening by -6 or so, 1080i looks much cleaner.

I like the controls better on the HMC150, but you can do almost the same with the HM100.
The zoom ring is not smooth, as it is a servo, but I use the ring mostly for focus, and that works good.